Tisha B'Av is an annual fast day in Judaism, named for the ninth day of the month of Av in the Hebrew calendar. The fast commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The day has been called the "saddest day in Jewish history". Thousands of Jewish pilgrims gather in Jerusalem’s Western Wall to pray and mourn throughout the night.

(Click here for an emeddable version of the video)

The Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corp (RAM) is a non-profit organization that provides free health care, dental care and eye care in remote areas of the United States and the world since 1985. Volunteer doctors, nurses and support workers provide the care at their own expense and the medical supplies, medicines, facilities and vehicles are all donated by supporters.

From July 24-26, I attended the RAM event at the Wise County Fairgrounds in Wise, Virginia. The area is in the Appalachian Mountain region bordering Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina.

People received numbers and started lining up to enter the health clinic around 4 a.m.

For those who did not receive the full range of health care they needed, they spent the night in their cars and returned the next day.

It was truly a remarkable experience to witness how many people in the United States, ranging from infants to the elderly, have little or no access to healthcare. It was truly the front lines of the healthcare problem in our country.

Editor’s note: On Wednesday, July 29, President Barack Obama discussed his healthcare plans at a town hall meeting in Bristol, Virginia, 62 miles from the Wise County Fairgrounds. He acknowledged the outstanding work of everybody associated with the event.

“People are able to get care because of the great volunteer efforts of people all over the country. That’s great,” President Obama said in front of employees of the local supermarket.

Further coverage elsewhere online:

In Virginia, health fair tends to America’s poor (AFP)

Rural Medical Camp Tackles Health Care Gaps (NPR)

On health care, America looks awfully third-world (Oregonian)

A different perspective on the health care debate (Daily Kos)

The Doctor Is In - in the Heart of Appalachia (AARP)

Uninsured queue for free healthcare (AFP)

Reuters photographer Robert Galbraith spent some time at Oaksterdam University in Oakland,  California where they teach the next generation of medical marijuana entrepreneurs. The city of Oakland had just passed Measure F, which created a special tax category for medical weed dispensaries, the first in the nation. As state and local governments look for new revenue streams in the recession, medical marijuana is becoming an attractive stream for new tax revenue.

Listening to another news report that stated there are more medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles than Starbucks coffee shops, I thought it would be a good time to look at Oaksterdam University, a “school” that teaches students the finer points of marijuana law and cultivation techniques. The school sits on a busy street corner in downtown Oakland, California with several of its business entities found throughout the neighborhood. There is a book store to sell students books and supplies, as well as hats, t-shirts and smoking paraphernalia; a glass blowing shop across the street; and a medical marijuana dispensary around the corner.

In the one-room school, students listen to lectures and grow marijuana for homework. Three type of students attend Oaksterdam — those with the intention of eventually working  in the medical marijuana industry; those wanting to grow for their personal use, and others interested in the politics of pot and those who want to make it legal. Most of the students in the evening class are middle-aged medical marijuana patients eager to learn the trade and how to grow their own medicine.

Two blocks away, at Coffeehouse Blue Sky, customers come and go after picking up their medical marijuana in a neighborhood surrounded by a variety of other businesses. There is no cliché customer—younger and older, those dressed in shorts and t-shirts and others dressed in business attire coming in for an after-work prescription. Up front, customers enter and show their identification card from their doctor.  A small room in the back of the café serves as the distribution center. Those seeking medical marijuana line up at a small window, where they choose among a variety of cannabis strains and prices before handing over cash.

While many patrons of the dispensary did not want to be photographed, few of the students in the classroom seemed to mind. It was both a fascinating and educational experience, and a glimpse at something we might see a lot more of in the future, with various forms of government looking to tap into a plentiful resource.

Hundreds of images rushed into our picture editing system within 2 hours of the start of business on July 22, 2009 and kept flashing across our monitors all day long. The screens all seemed to be filled with nearly black rectangles: a technical problem? No. What was happening? Simple! All the pictures were of a total solar eclipse. Most of the images were just black.

A combination picture shows the sequence of a total solar eclipse as observed in Chongqing municipality July 22, 2009. The longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow path of Asia, where it was expected to darken the skies for millions of people for more than six minutes in some places. REUTERS/Stringer

Ahead of the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century, staff photographers and dozens of stringers were positioned along the route of the blackout across central and eastern China. The first picture showing people holding welding masks to view the sun jumped onto our system around 8:30am, even before the eclipse started, but it was a bright picture and striking image. Then, as the moon gradually passed between the earth and sun blocking more and more light, the image tones got darker and darker. At 9:40am local time, the Yangtze Valley had gone dark and my screen showed this:

This is how I experienced the solar eclipse in front of my computer screen at the Beijing Pictures Desk… only a few minutes after the live show on TV, but in the same sequence. Bright, dark, black, a glimmer and oh…bright again…
 
What was also great to see was the way so many photographers interpreted the same scene in so many different and often amusing ways, despite the flood of plain pictures of the sun.

As local media said, next time we - or rather our descendants - witness such a phenomenon, a six-minute-long total eclipse in China, will be 500 years from now. The Chinese nation went crazy over it. Specialised solar viewing glasses and filters soon sold out, but this did not deter others from trying to watch it safely nor affect the enthusiasm of local residents. Ingenious thinking led to the use of other improvised tools to try and observe the eclipse without damaging eyes…

A man uses a piece of smoked glass to observe a solar eclipse in Baokang, Hubei province July 22, 2009. A total solar eclipse began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow path of Asia, where it was expected to darken the skies for millions of people for more than six minutes in some places. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA)

A boy uses a piece of smoked glass to observe a solar eclipse in Tianjin municipality July 22, 2009. A total solar eclipse began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow path of Asia, where it was expected to darken the skies for millions of people for more than six minutes in some places. REUTERS/Vincent Du (CHINA)

Residents use welding masks to watch the solar eclipse in Chongqing municipality July 22, 2009. A total solar eclipse began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow path of Asia, where it was expected to darken the skies for millions of people for more than six minutes in some places. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA)  

A resident uses a pair of self-made eye protection glasses to observe a partial eclipse in Shenzhen, Guangdong province July 22, 2009. A total solar eclipse began its flight on Wednesday across a narrow path of Asia, where it was expected to darken the skies for millions of people for more than six minutes in some places. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA)

It was a busy morning at the Beijing Pix Desk editing hundreds of images, but now its over I am little sad that the next time this happens, 500 years from now, I will be resting, hopefully peacefully…

Rick Wilking is a Reuters contract photojournalist based in Denver, Colorado who has been shooting for Reuters for almost 25 years based in Europe, Washington, D.C. and now in Colorado. Rick recently developed the idea of spending time documenting the lives of a Christian “Quiverfull” family who have 15 children due to their belief that all family planning is best left in the hands of God. Rick produced the following piece of multimedia video from his time spent with the Jeub family in Colorado and tells us about the experience below. -  Jim Bourg

I am convinced that the easiest part of my job is taking pictures. Coming up with story ideas, getting access and then producing the final results are MUCH tougher! That was very true with this story. I read about Christian Quiverfull-minded folks who closely follow and live by Christian scripture and biblical verses and decided to try to find one of these families to document. I begged my way into a Quiverfull forum on the web and was met there with much skepticism about letting me in. One family in Kansas said maybe and another back east said I could come by. But neither were enthused and I knew the travel budget was too tight for a trip that distant and long.

Then I found the Jeub family, only a 90 minute drive away from my home in Colorado. They too were tentative at first but let me in after seeing stories I had done recently in their area. My work documenting the headquarters of the “Focus on the Family” organization, portraying troops returning from Iraq at a nearby military base and covering “The Purity Ball”, a Christian father-daughter event all convinced them of my fairness and the integrity of my photojournalism. They said they prayed on it hard and were led to let me into their home to tell their story through pictures and sound.

Quiverfull, like any other belief system or philosophy, takes different forms. Believers generally view children as a gift from God and avoid all forms of birth control. To many, including the Jeubs, the movement means trusting God entirely to decide your family size by surrendering your life to God.

The Jeubs say that goes for their reproductive life too. “Wendy and I believe God wants us to trust Him in our family planning. The results are his to deal out. We’re more than fine by that. We are amazed (italics theirs) at how incredible the blessings have been…..We have 15 children, but why would we say that #16 wasn’t a blessing? Or #17? Or #18?”

Once I met the Jeubs it was really just about being a fly on the wall witnessing what goes on normally in their lives and their home. Chris told the attendees during a church service held in their home that one of the best things about a photographer is that they are invisible. He then proceeded to introduce me.

Producing the video after the fact took almost as much time as shooting the pictures and video did. I think it is worth it though because the power of the images is just enhanced with motion, music and narration by the people involved. This old dog just decided to learn some new tricks and record audio and embrace video technology in addition to shooting still photos late last year. I’ve been working for Reuters for almost 25 years but this is my first video project.

For photographers the saying used to be that you can’t go wrong with kids or dogs. The Jeubs had recently lost the family dog but kids they had in abundance. Thirteen kids are living at home; six are under the age of 6, there’s a set of twins, a 4 month old baby and a 17-year-old celebrating her birthday. We in the business say this is a “target-rich environment” for making photos. Everywhere you looked there was something happening. The trick was to pick and choose the moments to focus on, the same as with any other story. It’s the little fleeting moments that make the best pictures, every time. Seeing them when others don’t and then capturing them in a creative way is the secret to success as a documentary photographer.

Thanks to the Jeub family: Zechariah, Priscilla, Havilah, Joshua, Josiah, Hannah, Keilah, Tabitha, Noah, Micah, Isaiah, Lydia, Cynthia, father Chris and mother Wendy for letting me into their life briefly and ignoring me as much as possible while I was there!

Here’s my favorite still image from the 50 some pictures that went into the video project and the two long days I spent with the Jeub family. The action of three-year-old Havilah seemingly floating around on the trampoline, the light, the way her dress twirled up - all combine to tell a story. If only her sister hadn’t appeared dressed in red in the background of the picture it would have been perfect. I guess you just can’t have it all!

"Skunk", the Israeli Army calls it. Good name.

It had been a month or so since I was last in Bilin, a village in the West Bank, north of Ramallah. Regular protests occur here every Friday over the controversial Israeli barrier fence. Palestinian, Israeli  and international protesters and activists gather near the fence to protest and sometimes throw stones at the Israeli security forces standing guard on the other side who fire teargas at the protesters. Sometimes the amount of teargas the security forces fires can be overwhelming because they are firing into open fields rather than narrow streets or houses. The gas is usually enough to turn all but the hardcore protesters back along the path from which they came.

I knew beforehand the Israeli security forces had recently introduced a new sort of smelly chemical spray, called Skunk, fired from a police water cannon. I was told by Fadi Arouri, our Ramallah photographer, how horrible it was after he experienced the lasting stink it left with him the week before. He politely offered to stay back last Friday, a few hundred meters away, to get a long shot of the tear gas being fired.

I thought, no problem, I'll get in there and get the shots before any spraying starts. I should have known better with my track record. I was once sprayed by a police water canon in Kuala Lumpur during a protest and had to walk the walk of shame through a brand new shopping mall, covered in yellow die and  pepper spray,  to find a dry shirt and a  pair of pants. Nobody in the mall wanted to serve me.

A few years later, outside the American embassy in Jakarta, I was directly hosed by a police water canon, for more than the required amount of time I might add. Moments later I discovered, to the amusement of the few hundred hard-core anti American protesters who were also there, that I was the only person who was wet.

This time in Bilin, I promised myself, it would be different.

Some of the protesters were wearing heavy yellow rain gear, the type fishermen wear or crossing guards don in storms. I wonder where they bought them, out here in the desert where it rains only a few days a year. The police water canon quickly emerged from hiding behind a house on the hill. I was already wearing my gas mask as I casually started walking backwards, trying not to appear like I was retreating.

It was not the most dramatic sight in the world. The water cannon first sent a few feeble streams of the green liquid into the air to test the wind direction. It looked like most went back towards the Israeli troops watching from the distance. Then it started sending the plumes of spray 45 degrees to the right of us, high into the air. I watched it rain down on the protesters in front of me, took some pictures and stood back out of the way. Again and again it fired, but I was dry, safe and, I believed, smelling sweet.

And then it happened. It started with a drop of sweat on my nose, inside my tightly sealed gas mask. The sweat started a chain-reaction itch. I shook my head and even jumped up and down. This had to be dealt with, and quickly I thought. Walking away from the protesters, I gently slid my index finger through my mask's seal in attempt to solve my dilemma by scratching my nose. Big mistake!

It was, without doubt, one of the most horrible things I have ever smelled. I can't describe it without using expletives. But if you mixed dirty diapers with not so fresh road kill and left them all in the sun for a few days, you might get an idea. That half second scratch will last me a lifetime. And I wasn't even hit with it.

Despite changing my clothes by the car, and rinsing my exposed arms and face with water the stench was still there. It was on my boots, my cameras, my helmet and mask. I could smell it the whole ride home. I could think of nothing else. I thought about what I would say to the border police at the checkpoint if they searched my car. "No, I don't have a rotting corpse in the trunk, I was just at a protest"

Five days later, after countless washes and scrubs, I can still smell it. My cameras came out worst. I wanted to put them through the delicate cycle in my washing machine, but you just can't do that.  My gas mask went in the dishwasher, though, along with my helmet. Everything else that couldn't be machine washed, has been coated over and over with disinfectant spray, to no avail. The trunk of my car still has a "serial killer" stench to it.

Next time I am in Bilin, I will go for the long shot...

The mood was somber in Arizona as deportees filed up the stairs to the plane that would take them back to Guatemala. I remember a woman crossing herself as she looked up at the plane. Later I learned it was the first flight she’d ever taken.

Migrants deportation from Carlos Barria on Vimeo.

Most of the migrants I talked to had crossed the border into the United States on foot. One woman told me of being abandoned by a ‘coyote’ during the crossing after she injured herself. She said she had wandered for two days before U.S. border agents found her, dehydrated and weak. She also told me how one of the agents had cleaned and bandaged her feet– a kindness that clearly moved her.

When the plane landed in Guatemala, the deportees let out a subdued cheer and smiled nervously. It was a journey that would reunite them with families, even if it meant the end of a dream to get ahead in the United States. For others, it was a setback. Several told me they would try to run the border again.

Reuters Boston Photographer Brian Snyder spent a very long and claustrophobic day in the tiny dark hotel suite where a homeless nurse, Tarya Seagraves-Quee, and three of her four children have been living in Massachusetts for nearly two months.

A record number of families are now being put up in motels due to high unemployment and the rising number of homes going into foreclosure, costing taxpayers $2 million per month but providing a lifeline for desperate families.

Seagraves-Quee has found refuge in a motel after losing her job in Georgia more than a year ago and going without health-care for about 10 months. She suffers from multiple sclerosis, Aspergers syndrome, anemia and lupus, and now is scared she may have cancer. Two of her children, aged 16 and 6, are autistic. After losing her job, and facing repeated physical abuse from a boyfriend, she spent $700 - almost all her savings — on airline tickets for her family to stay with relatives in Boston.

Being homeless has actually helped Seagraves-Quee get the healthcare she needs.  Everyday she makes phone calls for and fills out applications for public housing in an effort to get out of the shelter/motel.  Some of the towns in the area she contacted are simply not taking any new applicants; in others, the ”wait list” for housing is 10 or even 40 years.

Brian’s audio slideshow on the life of the Tarya Seagraves-Quee and her family follows. It is narrated by Seagraves-Quee, who is also a gospel singer:

Dallas, Texas contract photographer Jessica Rinaldi spent three intensive, intimate and emotional days in the lives of Annette and Frederick Wilson and their family. The Wilsons have been homeless since they moved to Texas from Minnesota after losing both their jobs and then their home.

They ended up with their children and extended family in a homeless shelter but through assistance from the National Urban League they have now found some employment and income, and finally an apartment to live in.

Jessica’s audio slideshow, narrated by the Wilsons themselves:

Annette had been a bus driver in Minneapolis and Frederick was a forklift operator, but he had already been out of work for almost year before Annette lost her job. When Annette, who is a pastor in a Pentecostal church, lost her job and could no longer make the payments on her home she prayed to God for guidance and she says that God told her to move to Texas. They arrived in Texas with only $150 and drove straight to a homeless shelter. There they learned about a local job fair where they got in contact with the National Urban League who helped them move out of the shelter and into a motel room.

Frederick, who has been making small amounts of cash working a few hours a night doing jobs that employees do not want to do themselves (like mopping or climbing into dumpsters to break down and sort the trash), continues to apply for better jobs and remains hopeful.

After close to three weeks in a homeless shelter and one week in a motel, with a new job for Annette and financial assistance from the Urban League, the Wilson family have now moved into a new apartment that they and their family can call home.

Everybody likes something for nothing. Better still if that something is actually useful. Last week was all about a little extra content for just a little extra effort and how it pays dividends.

Babysitting
My guess is most Reuters photographers have a camera in their hand most of the time. You know, just in case. My journalist wife had to drive to the world’s largest coal port last weekend. I was babysitting. A new emission trading scheme was slated to be the following week’s main story in Australia so I grabbed toddler and cameras and off we all went. I ended up with a good carbon emissions file including an Asia picture of the week (below) in between splashing in puddles and chasing seagulls…with my son of course.

Drive-by
Two days later I headed in the opposite direction, to Canberra for the arrival of Spain’s King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia. On the way there the clouds lifted from some distant hills framing a new wind power farm. Pulling over on the freeway, a few quick frames out the other side of the car…and an image (below) included in the Best of the Week file.

Don’t forget to look behind you
Australia’s Prime Minister and main opposition leader both came to welcome Spain’s royalty. These two had been at each other’s throats the past few days in a saga about a free pick-up truck and a faked email that had gripped the nation. I’m already there and it costs nothing to squeeze off a few well timed frames while the opposition looked the other way. Sure, it’s primarily a local interest story but depending on how it may have developed, it had the potential to take the Prime Minister down… and why say no to a nice colour half page in the country’s largest circulation national paper?

Getting something for next to nothing has never been easier.